+May all enjoy a holy Lent+

As we approach the somber days of Lent, let us use this time productively to ask our readers to join together in 40 days of prayer to seek a solution to this ever-deepening crisis that has ripped our beloved Church to shreds and threatens to engulf the world. A new schism looms regarding Francis and his New World Order affiliations, and internal rifts are running rampant among Traditionalist groups.

Traditionalists viciously attack each other and anyone daring to question their stance on social media platforms, scandalizing anyone not Catholic who might be reading their content. And this even with their so-called priests looking on. (To see a refutation of claims made against this site and read about the latest controversy surrounding the material-formal “thesis” among the CMRI sect, visit https://www.keepandshare.com/doc18/25524/cmri-clergy-accusations-pdf-351k?dn=y&dnad=y and https://www.keepandshare.com/doc18/25525/cmri-material-formal-flap-pdf-204k?dn=y&dnad=y).

God will not be mocked forever, and His honor and glory demand we do all in our power to offend Him no more. Prayer is the only answer to this disaster and one man, one glorious prophet seems to be the very saint who can best address every problem we are currently facing. We need answers, and we need them quickly. We can only hope that 40 days will give us enough time to pray fervently and sincerely for those answers and receive them. And that time period itself actually comes into play where the holy Prophet Elias is concerned. For Elias spent 40 days in the desert, roughly the time-span of Lent itself. What was he doing there? Fleeing from the evil queen Jezebel, who he feared would take his life, after challenging and defeating the false prophets on Mt. Carmel who were deceiving the Chosen People. And so here we stand, garbed in our scapulars, begging him to assist us in these times that, as Christ Himself warned us, would be like no other.

The Carmelite Order celebrates St. Elias’ feast day on July 20. We read the following from Carmel, Its History, Spirit, and Saints (P.J. Kennedy & Sons, New York, 1927; pgs. 240-42): “The Holy Prophet is invoked against pestilence, to avert public calamities, to restore peace of soul, [also against drought, floods and famines — Ed.] and to draw down the blessings of God on those aspiring to perfection, as is proved in innumerable cases among the Saints and Blessed of Carmel. He is also called upon to avert wars and a remarkable instance is given when Roger of Sicily had to sustain terrible combats against the Saracens. So immediate was the answer of his prayers, that the pious Count built a Church and Monastery in honor of Elijah and presented it to the Carmelites. Many churches, altars, and statues have been erected in his name; states and cities have chosen him for Patron.

“This devotion is proper to these latter times when the crimes of men are such as to weary the Divine patience and draw down calamities upon the human race. It is well to seek the charitable aid of him “who has been chosen to appease the wrath of God’ ” (Ecclesiasticus). Then, too, each day brings us nearer the time when he will come among us with the last message of mercy and forgiveness, ere he sheds his blood for the Lord ‘in whose sight he stands.’”

Blessed Elias’ primary mission was the destruction of false sacrifices and the false priesthood of those offering them. He is to come again during the last three and a half years of Antichrist’s reign to convert the Jewish people, to guide the Church and to preach penance according to Catholic scriptural commentators. Secondary, then, was his mission to open the eyes of Israel’s faithful, and alert them to the gravity of their errors and the deception of these evil men.  Pope Clement VIII declared that the conversion of sinners is one aspect of Elias’ mission, perpetuated by the Carmelites. And how could this be otherwise when, as the Carmelites have long held, the little cloud seen by Elias floating over the Mediterranean Sea in the form of a foot prefigured the coming of the Blessed Virgin Mary, mother of the Messiah, refuge of sinners. She appeared at Fatima to beg the children to pray and make sacrifices for sinners. And during the sixth Fatima vision, the Miracle of the Sun, she appeared as Our Lady of Mt. Carmel and Our Lady of Sorrows.  If we wish to obtain the conversion of sinners and to stay the prospects of war, St. Elias is truly our patron — for he has been venerated for centuries in that country and is even the patron of Russia’s Air Force! https://orthochristian.com/140879.html

We read from another Orthodox website: “The Prophet Elias was in essence the first monk and the first dedicated to virginity in the Old Testament. A great faster, he walked barefoot, wore a rough mantle of camel’s hair, which was very coarse, uncomfortable, irritated the skin and resembled a hairshirt worn by Christian ascetics. He wore a leather girdle around his waist (like Orthodox monks) and carried a staff in his hand (like bishops) as a symbol of his special spiritual authority.

“And St. Elias said, I have been very jealous for the Lord God of hosts: for the children of Israel have forsaken Thy covenant, thrown down Thine altars, and slain Thy prophets with the sword; and I, even I only, am left; and they seek my life, to take it away (3 Kings 19:10). This is precisely what we often say nowadays: “O Lord, look, Your children have abandoned Your churches, they have been languishing in vices and debauchery, they are greedy for gain and seek only pleasures, bending the knee to demons in sects!” And, like the apostles, we want to exclaim: Lord, wilt Thou that we command fire to come down from heaven, and consume them (Lk. 9:54). And we will certainly hear the meek answer: “Ye know not what manner of spirit ye are of. For the Son of man is not come to destroy men’s lives, but to save them” (Lk. 9:55-56). The Lord answered the same to St. Elias.

“Let us bear in mind these words of our Savior: I am come to send fire on the earth; and what will I, if it be already kindled! (Lk. 12:49). This fire is the Divine zeal that induces us to overcome our laziness, neglect, pride, and all other things that stand between us and Christ. And may the Lord help us scorch all the impediments caused by our enemy, our foe, by this Divine fire. Amen.” And on these texts we will comment at greater length below.

Prayer to St. Elias (from Carmel, Its History, Spirit, and Saints)

Holy Prophet of God Elias, intercede for us and for the salvation of all.

V: Pray for us, O holy Father Elias.
R: That we may be made worthy of the promises of Christ.

Let us pray
Grant, we beseech Thee, O Almighty God, that we who believe that the Blessed Elias Thy Prophet and our Father was wonderfully carried up in a fiery chariot, may by his intercession be raised to the desire of heavenly things and rejoice in the society of Thy saints. We ask this through Christ our Lord. Amen.

And to this prayer we add the following, based on Kings 19:10 and the Gospel of St. John:

O blessed Elias, come deliver us in person we beg thee, if it be God’s appointed time for thy appearance! But if it is not yet that time, with great confidence, we humbly and desperately beseech thee to intercede with us before God to chastise and disperse those among us who, as in your day, have:

• slain the prophets — impugned the authority of all true popes and the obedience owed them;
• forsaken His covenant — sinned against the first, third, seventh and eighth Commandments; ignored, violated and misconstrued the Sacred Canons and papal laws;
• thrown down His altars — set up the abomination in the Novus Ordo and on the false altars of Traditionalists, (bread and priest idols).

Let these men of Baal no longer delude God’s people; force them to admit their ministry is not certainly valid; beg God to send them the Holy Ghost, fire of love for the brethren and the light of truth, that they might repent and do penance. And if they refuse, or provide insufficient proofs, continuing to deceive the elect, beseech Almighty God to send down His fire from heaven as a sign, that we, who wish only to love and serve Him, might know the truth. In the name of Our Lord Jesus Christ. Amen.

Our Lady of Mt. Carmel, pray for us!

Sts. Teresa of Avila and Therese of Liseux, pray for us!

From Holy Scripture, Haydock commentary

For more on the verses describing Elias’ mission, we turn to the commentary of Rev. Leo Haydock on Chapter 18 of Kings:

Verse 17: (The ineffectual King Ahab reproached Elias saying) “Art thou he that troublest Israel?” Haydock comments: “Thus the wicked esteem those disturbers of the public repose, who will not suffer them to go on in their wickedness unmolested, Thus the Jews complain of Christ. Such a war is better than a false peace… Elias strove by easy means to make the people open their eyes and return to their God.”

Verse 18: And Elias said to Ahab: “I have not troubled Israel, but thou and thy father’s house, who have forsaken the commandments of the Lord and followed Baalim.” Haydock comments: “Your impiety has brought on this scourge. I only denounced it, (Salien).”

Verse 19: “Gather unto me all Israel, unto Mount Carmel, and the prophets of Baal… and of the groves… [worshippers of the goddess Astarte].” Haydock comments: “[These prophets] imitated the lives of the true prophets to delude the people.”

Verse 21: Elias called to the people: “How long do you halt between two sides? If the Lord be God, follow Him; but if Baal then follow him.” Haydock comments: “Sides: adoring sometimes God, at other times the devil… [as do] those indifferent to religion. They wished to unite the service of both…as some, at present, assert that many religions may be pleasing to Heaven” (and here we see ecumenism). Haydock notes that Elias called down fire from Heaven to light his altar, despite the fact its trenches — where the fire was supposed to burn — were filled with water. This exemplifies Elias’ complete confidence that God would work a miracle, which of course He did, by lighting Elias’ altar of sacrifice. Haydock then goes on to quote Salien as follows: “[The prophets of Baal] might otherwise have brought down fire, as they will do in the days of Antichrist.”

Why does Salien say this? Because, as we read in Apocalypse 13:13, regarding the false prophet: “And he did great signs, so that he made even fire to come down from Heaven.” Rev. H.B. Kramer comments in his The Book of Destiny that the only biblical figure in history to do this was Elias. As Salien says, this time it will be the prophets of Baal who bring down the fire, and certainly Roncalli, in introducing his 1959 missalettes in English stating “all men” in the consecration, and in instituting his 1962 missal, brought fire down from heaven to light Baal’s altars, effectively replacing Pope St. Pius V’s Roman Missal even before Montini introduced the Novus Ordo Missae.

Verse 24: “Call ye on the names of your gods and I shall call on the name of my Lord, and the god that shall answer by fire, let him be God.” Haydock comments: “He does not order them to invoke idols, but challenges them to PROVE their divinity, if they can. God has given this proof of fire repeatedly… He will restrain the devil’s power to confirm the truth.”

Verse 40: After Elias had wrought his miracle, he told the people: “Take the prophets of Baal and let not one of them escape. And when they had taken them, Elias brought them down to the torrent of Cison and killed them there.” Haydock comments: It was at “the unanimity of the people’s cry” that the prophets of Baal were killed, “…by God’s inspiration, as impostors who had deluded the people, and were worthy of death.”

In his comments on Kings 19:12, “For the children of Israel have forsaken Thy covenant, they have thrown down Thy altars and have slain the prophets,” Haydock explains: “They neglected circumcision and almost the whole law.”

To convert, not destroy

And yet, when Elias complains to God that it was only his zeal for Him that prompted his condemnations of the priests and that now he is alone and afraid, (Kings 18:10, 12), God showed him, Haydock notes, that there were two laws, one of terror and one of mildness. He thus encouraged Elias to temper his zeal, bear patiently with the people and instead of terrifying them, bring them to their senses by gentle means. This is reflected in the article from the Orthodox site above, where Christ is quoted as telling His apostles that He came not to destroy sinners, but to save them.

At the same time, our Lord also told His Apostles to walk away from those who would not listen, and the time for walking away has long since passed. We have been patient long enough. And so today, we issue this challenge to Traditionalists, in the name of the Prophet Elias, to PROVE, once and for all, that they are valid bishops and priests, according to Church law and infallible papal teaching; and we ask that it be met forthwith.

We wish no one to be destroyed, but with St. Elias, neither do we any longer wish to “be witness to the miseries of [the] people, and the war they [a]re waging against God and his servants…” (Kings 19:4), as Haydock says. All we desire is the destruction of deception, disunity, dissension and distrust that reigns among those Traditionalist sects today that God intended to be His elect. Whatever means are now necessary to end this heartbreaking insult to our Lord and His Holy Church, we leave to God the Father and this Holy Prophet, still standing alive in His presence. We ask those reading this blog to copy these prayers and pray and fast with us daily through Lent, begging Our Lord, Our Lady of Mt. Carmel and St. Elias, also the Carmelite Saints Teresa and Therese, that despite our unworthiness and many transgressions, our prayers will be heard.